L
ast issue in my editorial, I talked about the importance of
designing for operations and how that implied, among
other things, the need to know the purpose of each track
on your plan. Real railroads don’t add track just because it looks
cool or adds operational variety. So if realistic operations is a pri-
ority for you, then you need to know why those tracks are there,
and know the prototype’s reasons for them.
One helpful method I discovered in my track planning pursuits
started with an article in the June 1968
Model Railroader
by Dr.
Roy F. Dohn called “Layout plans by formula.” Dr. Dohn studied
a number of serious operating model railroads of that day and
derived some formulas you could apply to any trackplan to get
operational insight about how that plan might work in practice.
Dr. Dohn’s formulas are based on what was model railroad track
planning state-of-the-art in the 1950s and ‘60s. Since that time,
model railroad track planning has evolved to include a major
new kind of trackage Dr. Dohn did not consider: staging.
Staging tracks were first discussed in some depth by Allen
McClelland in his “V&O Story” circa 1980. The Layout Design
Special Interest Group (LDSIG) took the staging idea and refined
Publisher’s Musings - 1
Publisher’s Musings
by Joe Fugate
Designing for ops redux
Continuing the discussion of
how to design for good operation
MRH-Oct 2014
